Updates and input needed

[SixCylinders]

Seems like green motoring is dead....anyways I'll make a little number update incase you guys show back up. Got 32mpg on a 401 mile round trip the day before yesterday with a good amount of city driving dragging me down (and going against the wind both ways) and 500lbs of extra passengers. As far as the math goes for official record keeping I forgot to memorize the gallons at the pump but it was $40.98 @ 3.259/gallon and that comes out to 12.574 gallons.

[Empire]

awesome.
I wish I was getting anywhere near that.
I ended up replacing my DD corolla with a 4 door F150.
About to hit the gas station up to find out what I'm getting on the interstate.
My first full tank, (first week i owned it) all city driving, I got a whopping 12 mpg.

[Loren]

I was impressed last week. Spent the week tooling around North Carolina in my wife's 2007 MX-5. On the trip home Sunday, we were getting 38 mpg! Top up, cruise control at 72, 355 miles on 9.3 gallons. Totally unexpected.

[SixCylinders]

Dang that's driving 72mph? I need to test what my right foot can do with a 4 banger. Well...again, I drove a saturn SC2 once but didn't get any readings.

[Loren]

Modern fuel injection coupled with variable valve timing is proving to be great for fuel economy. The new MX-5 with a hard top is fairly aerodynamic, too, I'm sure that helps a lot.

Did I tell you about the trip back from Cedar Key a couple months ago in my Z4? I kept it below 60 and babied it, and it was reading 37.5 mpg on the on-board computer (which has proven to be pretty accurate) before I pulled off of the highway and started tanking it. It's damned difficult to drive that car in that manner, though!

[SixCylinders]

I think I might have been capable of making a 40mpg tank recently. Everything in the car was in working order (including the O2 sensor) and I was driving ~150 miles. Problem was I had no sleep for the first 75 miles so I was...not driving slow on I75/I4. This is only a VERY crude estimate but on the way back I must have been getting around 40mpgs because I believe I made out with about 35mpg INCLUDING my retarded sprint upstate. It's been a month or so since I made this trip so I don't remember any numbers but I am going to be back with a vengeance and some ridiculously good numbers sometime when I have had some sleep and need to make a long trip. Still stuck making I think only 26 or so mpgs in town but I'm thinking about lowering the idle (I set it a little over 800rpm back when I had some idle hunting problems), also need to get around to doing some electrical work including a battery gauge (you can bet I'll turn the car off more when I can see the battery charge status!)

[Loren]

I did an economy run competition last month and experimented with engine-off coasting. Didn't want to do it in the Yaris because it was too new or the BMW because it was too expensive... didn't want to replace the starter in either of them! But, in the beater Miata, I don't care. I can get a used starter for $20-30.

Anyway, I wired up a "kill switch" and stuck it (literally stuck it... with duct tape) next to the shifter so that I could pop the car into neutral and immediately kill the engine without having to reach for the key. The route was about 200 miles and was time-limited so that we averaged about 40 mph. (that doesn't mean we were able to cruise at 40... that included stops... so we were driving 50-60 where we could to make time) I was mostly pulsing up to anywhere between 50 and 65 and coasting down to 35-40 before restarting and accelerating back up to speed. This netted me about 48 mpg in my 1.6 Miata. I was hoping for 50, but didn't quite get it. (will next time because I've added a hard top and deleted the right side mirror)

Around town, I'm getting 32+ depending on how I drive. I took out my temporary kill switch. When I get around to putting one back in, I'll have the potential to easily get 40 mpg in the city.

[SixCylinders]

Damn that's what you call hardcore. I want to wire up a killswitch to my injectors but keep the engine running off the transmission with the throttle wide open so I can just kick the injectors back on before the engine revs too low to recover, my wiring works sucks ass though so I'm definitely putting it off.

[Loren]

Yeah, it was kinda crazy, but it was an entertaining way to spend an evening! Who needs sleep?